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Oh, Come On! My Standards Aren’t That High!

Well, not an auspicious beginning to the New Year. I decided to clear out the underbrush in my ebook backlog a bit and started in reading some books I’d been meaning to get to for a while.

So far, it’s not noon, yet, and I’ve started three of ’em. Put two down. Deleted them from my devices. Not going to finish them.

An example: after wading through multiple problems in noun-verb agreement, pronoun confusion and even misuse–“their” for “its” one too many times in descriptive narrative (not dialog, where it is remotely possible I might excuse such things, depending on the character), for one, and anachronisms in a 1920s setting–I saw “balled out” used for “scolding” and just couldn’t take any more of that book.

And this was an ebook from an established publishing house, not an “indie” so there were NO possible excuses for such incompetent editing. Are there just fewer and fewer literate “proofreaders” and editors, or are publishing houses just shoving unedited “advance reader copies” out the door, thinking that ebook readers are less literate than hardcopy readers?

Maybe it’s even worse, but I don’t want to contemplate that. *sigh*

So now I’m reading a book that was touted/blurbed as sci-fi which appears to really be a “slapstick comedy sci-fi romance novel”. *sigh* Please, next time just give an accurate description. At least it’s amusing and written halfway literately.

*sigh* At least I have more than a few hardcopy books also stacked up in my “to read” list to take refuge in–books not published in these days of illiterate boob “proofreaders/editors”.

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It Makes Perfect Sense in the Bizarro Universe

So, package coming via “Fedex Smartpost” (hereafter known as Fedex Dumbpost) started 89 miles away from its destination (me), and seven hours later it’s 370 miles away from its destination. Now, Fedex has a “hub” that’s just 50 miles from the origination location, less than 40 miles from me. Yep. That makes sense. Instead of the package going to the nearest hub close to both the origination and the destination, it traveled 460 miles.

The really “smart” thing about the delivery routing is that, just like the last package from the same location, it’ll go to the hub that’s less than 40 miles from its destination, sometime early next week, then it’ll be delivered to the post office here, where it will be delayed at least another day in getting to me.

The folks in Bizarro world are all thinking, “Now, why didn’t we come up with that?”

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Post Xmas Blahs

Dec 26 and a little less so today have been devoted to cleaning out my alimentary canal. Son&Heir was inflicted with a stomach/other virus last week, and passed it to my Wonder Woman who… let me in on the fun.

So, massive joint aches, headache, fever, voiding of alimentary canal on both ends and rumbles, pains and other such usual things in between. *meh* It’s been so long since I’ve been really sick that I’d forgotten how to deal with it. *heh*

Better now, though still shaky and still emptying out the distal end of my alimentary canal. (I really didn’t know I had it in me! I guess folks who tell me I’m ‘full of “it”‘ know what they’re talking about. :-))

So, that’s why no continuation of the 12 Days of Xmas yesterday. Here, try of these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFTKwg2Oxts

Yeh, yeh, so Placido is in all of them. So? 😉

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Lord of the Dance

If someone can identify the vocalist in the recording below, I’d be happy to credit her. I can’t even recall where I got this recording (I’ve collected probably too many recordings over the years and some, like this one, have been through too many stages of archiving for all the data to just be there). I don’t want to step on the artist’s toes or anything, so I’d be very glad to purchase another copy.

[audio:dance.mp3]

I danced in the morning when the world had begun
I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun
I came down from heaven and I danced on earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he

I danced for the scribes and the Pharisees
They wouldn’t dance, they wouldn’t follow me
I danced for the fishermen James and John
They came with me so the dance went on

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he

I danced on the Sabbath [“Sunday” as sung] and I cured the lame
The holy people said it was a shame
They ripped, they stripped, they hung me high
Left me there on the cross to die

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he

I danced on a Friday when the world turned black
It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body, thought I’d gone
But I am the dance, and the dance goes on

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he

They cut me down and I leapt up high [diff. from sung]
I am the life that will never, never die
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me
I am the Lord of the dance, said he

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he

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I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

For some reason, John Gorka’s rendition is new to me. *shrugs* I guess I can’t have heard it all, eh? (This year’s Xmas music playlist is right at 40 hours long, now. Maybe I’ll stop… after cataloging and adding another 8 hours or so? Maybe. And maybe 40 hours is a good place to stop… for this year.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P64tdKrQiY4

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We 3 Kings

I really do “get” the carbon fiber cello, given the location. Oh, I also enjoy the treatment of the tune. Going on one of my Xmas playlists (the one with lots of Wynton Marsalis Xmas music and such ;-))